Eishi learned enough to attempt any major level ups inside his villa. It was constructed with the highest specifications possible, but it could no longer withstand his power. He would end up destroying his hard-built base had he done so.
Looking around the large open space, he nodded with satisfaction.
Click.
The world’s colors soon returned. Eishi tested the current limits of his [Time Dominator]. It went through a total of four changes.
First, the consumption of his spirit was reduced again. It also occurred back when he reached the fifth-order. He could stably maintain time stop for up to thirty minutes straight per “session”. Factoring his two SS-rated recovery talents, he could extend it for a much longer time even without the [Stamina Restoration Pills]. Eishi was rather fortunate in this regard. The pills are only third-rank. Their effectiveness was reduced as he went up to higher life levels.
Second, Eishi could now properly utilize the time reversal function of his innate talent. It was extremely limited back then. He could only reverse damages on a small-scale. Now, he could restore an entire block with ease.
Moreover…
“Squeak!”
…it managed to revive a dead squirrel.
‘...Damn.’
That was all Eishi could think. The fact it could resurrect someone out from the death is a heaven-defying skill. Of course, there are certain limitations to it. Only those who died in the past fifteen minutes could be resurrected. The more preserved the body, the lesser the consumption on his end.
He also experimented on some of the ‘slave laborers’ they captured. These are the espers who once stood on the opposite side as Eishi. Through them, he discovered that he could control whether to reverse only their physical bodies or their memories. The most useful part of it was the ability to reconstruct what happened in the ‘past’. There was still a lot to this superpower.
‘Reversing physical states…’
Unfortunately, he could not use it on himself to recover any consumption. It was simply adding one before subtracting one; nothing changed.
Thirdly, the time stop became customizable. Eishi could now control whether to stop time everywhere or to lock it onto a specific range. It was akin to a domain he could control. Naturally, this option costs less compared to the typical time stop he does. It granted Eishi flexibility in his god-like skill.
Lastly, he could now bring time forward. He could cause someone to age rapidly, though the consumption depends on the target. If it was a weaker opponent, it wouldn’t take much to turn them old. Similarly, it would take a lot of energy to do the same on espers close to his current rank.
Eishi’s breakthrough to the sixth-order granted him control over time’s three directions—past, present, and future.
‘I thought it follows the pattern of three, six, and nine…’
The manuals he received back then detailed the future of esper advancement. It was purely theoretical. They put forth that the third, sixth, and ninth order are watersheds. Advancing through these stages would result in greater increases to one’s power.
It was wrong because the major watershed only existed in the sixth-order!
Throughout Eishi’s experience, ranking up per order granted drastic changes to one’s physical body.
The second-order allowed genetic energy to exist on one’s skin;
The third-order on the muscles;
The fourth-order on the bones;
The fifth-order on the bone marrow;
And the sixth-order on the internal organs.
Noticeably, his genetic energy reserves grew sharply at the sixth-order. It was also then did he unlock more functions of his innate talent.
‘At the seventh-order, what’s next?’
Eishi felt like it had something to do with the milky white core inside his head. Even now, the whale’s ‘monster core’ remains untouched. The energy it contained was so vast it would overload his body the moment he absorbs it.
That was before.
Eishi took out a shiny white crystal from his spatial backpack. It was the size of his head. It emitted a strong attraction to his body. He made sure to handle it as gently as he could.
Weirdly enough, this crystal was fragile compared to the seventh-order whale’s thick skin. Saeko was able to destroy it after a few strikes. The ensuing aftermath was harmless. There was merely ambient genetic energy that drifted across the wind. Eishi vaguely caught onto the fact that they missed something when they shattered it. Though he did not mind it much.
He stared onto the large pile of white crystals and felt satisfied. The sensation brought by huge wealth never failed to exhilarate Eishi.
Using the absorption technique attached to the [Origin Swallowing Method], Eishi began draining the white crystal. The moment he did so…
“Hmm..?!”
…he found the crystal attached to himself. The head-sized white crystal gradually sank onto his right arm. It melted like liquid metal, enveloping the entirety of his right hand.
Ba-thump-!
Ba-thump-!
His heart began beating fast. [Sun’s Essence] and [True Dragon Will] woke up, roused by this foreign intrusion. Pleasure flooded Eishi’s brain before it morphed into pure pain.
“Fuck..!”
His left hand clutched his right arm. Strong heat washed over his entire body over and over again. His healthy white skin turned scalding red. Smoke came out of his entire body. His outfit, which he had just equipped moments ago, was burnt to ashes. Only his pair of shoes remained.
Thud-!
Bam-!
Eishi’s knees dropped to the ground. His face contorted in pain. Veins appeared on his neck down to his dick. The latter, as if stimulated by the crystal’s potency, twitched. Lust, pleasure, and pain turned his entire body into a melting pot.
The milky white core in his brain shone with white light. The [Super Regeneration] housed by his body gradually turned into the SS-rated [Transcendent Regeneration]. It turned out to be the whale’s innate talent, not the S-rated [Teleportation]. It was the exact reason why the whale took twelve hours to kill while the swordfish only took three strikes.
Their difference in body size and innate superpower rating was akin to heaven and earth!
The transformation gradually entered its final phase. Eishi, however, felt a sense of emptiness. It felt like something was still lacking—something he must complete.
‘The SS-rated talent… it’s not yet complete.’
He did not hesitate to bring out another white crystal. The same pain assaulted his nerves. Only this time, he managed to withstand them more. Their duration became lesser, too.
Just like that, Eishi fell into a state of continuously absorbing the white crystal.
An entire day passed in such a manner. The radius of one kilometer around Eishi became a forbidden zone. The rocks and steel bars had long melted to the ground. They tore through a hole on the asphalt. Whenever a living being came close, they would feel the terrifying mental pressure coming from all directions. Nobody could come closer at all!
That was until an unlucky fellow did.
“Huh..?”
Aki arrived in Yokohama’s airspace. It took him two hours to deal with everyone who betrayed him. Most of the males in his group died. Only the females—the beautiful ones—remained alive. He tested the [Unique Skill] through them.
Every session yielded a reward. The recorded first times granted more rewards. Aki did more than a hundred women in a week!
Artifacts, physical strengthening, even superpowers… he gained them all.
His current strength had long reached the standard of fifth-order, one-star for SSS-rated espers. Full of confidence, he finally decided to head straight to Yokohama, leading to his discovery now.
‘This kind of temperature… is this an esper?’
He remained outside the range of the mental pressure, hence he remained clueless. Aki was curious, however, which is why he walked towards its source.
The moment he stepped onto the range…
“..!”
…a suffocating feeling appeared on his chest. He found himself frozen still. His thoughts dissipated like pierced bubbles.
Crack-!
Shatter-!
Shatter-!
The nine-jeweled necklace he wore had its jewels shattered one by one. Even so, it could not bring Aki out of mental incapacitation. Eishi’s seventh-order life level coupled with his 300% increase in mental attack damage crushed Aki completely!
Click.
The world was deprived of its colors. His pupils shook as he desperately tried to move, but to no avail. His prided SSS-rated talent and the [Unique Skill] he had gained all proved to be useless in the face of this world’s greatest cheater.
“Interesting.”
A cold voice rang out beyond the zone where smoke continued rising. It was a man with a perfectly sculpted body. He walked barefooted; his body having zero clothes. The sixth-rank shoes he prided himself in were broken by Eishi’s breakthrough!
‘I didn’t expect to level up straight to the seventh-order.’
He didn’t expect that absorbing the whale’s crystal for the first time would trigger a severe ‘hunger’ from the body. It would have been cut off right after he absorbed the first crystal. Fortunately, he had plenty of it. He extended the hunger’s duration, subjecting his body to high-speed, high-stress absorption of genetic energy.
His two, no, three SS-rated recovery talents worked overtime to ensure he didn’t die. Others would have given up on the first crystal; either that or they would have been cooked alive.
The seventh-order entailed a completely different realm. The first six levels were meant to gradually pull the esper’s physical and mental level upwards. Once all six were completed, the milky white core got involved. His cells began to travel towards it, and by that, he meant every single cell from every single body part of his.
This process turned his entire body into a literal blender. Since he possessed power far surpassing his own level, the process of “travelling” became harsher. His leveling up condition became ten times more difficult than the normal one!
Several times, his physical body exploded into a blood mist. Eishi’s recovery talents saved him over and over again. He didn’t notice the passage of time when he completed the breakthrough.
The moment he did, he felt the genetic energy resting on every single cell of his. They are all connected towards the core inside his head, which at this moment, had turned into translucent red. Eishi’s entire genetic information was stored inside. As long as it existed, his physical body would recover. Even when only the blood-red core remained, he could still use it to reconstruct his broken body.
Such was the fabled seventh-order he had pioneered at this moment.
Eishi forgo the usual checking of his status as he stared at the ‘intruder’ who attempted to interrupt him. It was none other than Aki, the man who tried to kill his girlfriends several times. He felt nothing but anger towards him.
As soon as he arrived in front of Aki, he retracted his right arm. His fingers turned into a fist as he sent a punch to the frozen Aki.
Bam-!
Splat-!
The sheer impact of his punch turned his flesh into blood mist. Aki’s skeleton remained standing before crumbling into fine white dust. The ground they stood on was dirtied with blood, but not Eishi. An invisible wall emerged to block it all off—his [Cosmic Barrier] superpower.
“...Huh.”
It was his turn to get surprised. A dark blue light remained in Aki’s position. He did not hesitate to grab it. To his surprise, the dark-blue light sank onto his palm.
Then, there was nothing else.
[Detecting external information system… conversion complete.]
His status panel opened up on its own.
[Eishi Hiraoka]
Innate Talent: Time Dominator (SSS, Sixth-order), Space Exalted (SSS, Fifth-order)
Non-exclusive Talent: Spatial Backpack (3,610,000 Cubic Meters), Constitution Boost (SS, Fourth-order), Weak Electricity (A, Fourth-order), Spirit Boost (B, Fourth-order), Metal Sharpening (A, Fourth-order), Clairvoyance (A, Fourth-order), Transcendent Regeneration (SS, Seventh-order), Law Penetration (S, Fourth-order), Qi Burst (S, Fourth-order), Cosmic Barrier (S, Fourth-order), Sun’s Essence (SS, Seventh-order), True Dragon Will (SS, Seventh-order)
Converted Talent: Sex Fiend (SSS)
Life Level: Seventh-order, One-star
Strength: 6,371 > 13,411 (44,256)
Agility: 6,330 > 13,370 (44,121)
Constitution: 9,730 > 16,770 (105,651)
Spirit: 13,195 > 20,235 (26,306)
His eyes widened as he saw a brand new entry on his innate talent. There was also the “Converted Talent”, a brand new line in his panel. Then came the glaring ‘seventh-order’ on all three of his recovery talents. Finally, there were his attributes. His constitution reached six digits!
The overwhelming heat inside his body resembled a furnace waiting to be opened. Eishi had a vague feeling that he could take on all of Earth’s women, not that he would do it. He was very particular with his confidantes. He doesn’t shy away from the milfs, but he won’t do it with the ones for the streets.
Eishi doesn’t stoop that low.
The main reason [Sun’s Essence] and [True Dragon Will] leveled up was because of [Transcendent Regeneration]. The whale’s core was meant to level it up. When it reached the seventh-order, it could no longer proceed. The excess energy spilled onto the two other identical talents. By spamming the whale’s crystals, Eishi inadvertently upgraded his three recovery talents to the seventh-order.
‘Sex Fiend… is it official now?’